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by allendoerfer 3486 days ago
> The thing is, a Hollywood movie is qualitatively different than a FOSS library. In the former case, you are a passive consumer who paid money for a product.

Not in my example. Not even talking about Hollywood. Could also be indie and crowdsourced, just like FOSS can be sponsored by the biggest companies on the planet.

> In the latter, you are an active member of the JS community, benefiting from the shared work of other developers for free - the only thing they're asking for in payment is a bit of kindness, respect, civility and ideally the occasional contribution.

Sure, and that would be the right thing to do. Still he mentions, that he has stopped working on a project for being criticized for ASCII art. I do not know the specific case and mostly I do not care enough, but it annoys me, too, when developers try to be exceptionally funny and clever inside code - especially when they fail. So I think you are allowed to criticize something like that, if you want to.

> Plus, if there's something wrong with the FOSS project, you have ultimate power to change it as you see fit.

Does not apply to criticism about design decisions.

I think reviews (sometimes) have a value in itself for the reader and help to create a working market of FOSS, where the best library gets the most users. I get the developers point of view and can imagine how he feels, but playing devils advocate here lets me conclude, that saying something sucks is okay.